brewgator

FT Family: I know the topic of missing segments and hidden city bookings has been discussed ad nauseum. One slight variation though and I wonder if anybody has done this before? I am booked on a multi-segment flight on Delta/KLM in November done via a travel provider (cruise company). The itinerary is great but the fare is not ungradeable. Is it possible to book an award redemption (business) for the initial (overseas) segment and then call Delta to proactively cancel the previously booked segment only while keeping the remainder of my itinerary intact? I do not want to risk the remaining portions of my itinerary and can suck it up and fly coach the whole way but award inventory is available if this is doable. For the record I did contact Delta reservations and they said that this was acceptable but I wanted to reach out and ask other FT members if they had done and, if so, what their experience was.

flyerCO

Couple of problems.

1-DL has no control over the cruise companies reservation.
2-Cruise company is using highly discounted bulk tickets most likely.
3-this means you must go through the cruise company to remove the segment that you don't want on them.
4-unless cruise company agrees to remove the segment from the reservation, the remaining portions will automatically cancel.


The agent is most likely not understanding the type of tickets a cruise company uses. If they were normal paid fare tickets, then yes there'd be no issue getting DL to do this. However the bulk tickets cruise companies use are a different matter.

Even if by some luck the reservation didn't auto-cancel when you no-show for the one coach segment, you would have issue of using etickets out of sequential order. You can't use coupon five before using coupon four, etc...

ethernal

Is the award option on the same exact flight? While not risk free, why not just book the award segment and scan both tickets at the gate (and let the gate agent know)? People buy two tickets for one person all the time and I assume that those clear just fine. Even in the absolute worst case you'd have a pretty strong case to have your original ticket re-instated if there were any issues (you literally showed up and flew the segment you were ticketed for).

Often1

1. Do not do this. It is guaranteed not to work and there is a 50/50 chance that your cruise line bulk ticket is cancelled, leaving you to purchase a one-way return to the US at walk-up prices. Permitting this means that the head count will not match, weight & balance will be off and, on the international segment, there will be a full on need to do a manual match. If you want to purchase a second seat, there is a way to do that. Call DL / AF / KL as the case may be.

2. Most cruise line tickets are BULK, meaning that they typically are inflexible and certainly need to be handled by the cruise line's TA. The carrier has sold a block of seats to the cruise line or TA and does not even know what you (or the cruise line) paid for the ticket.

3. Some cruise lines may accommodate, sell UG's, and do other things. Some will not. Your starting point is to call the cruise line.

brewgator

Thanks for all of the input folks!!! You have pretty much confirmed my thoughts. I do not think buying a second ticket and keeping the first is going to work but I had considered that as well. Better just stick with Plan 'A' and suck it up. Not worth the chance of the whole itinerary being canceled for one segment. At least I have an aisle seat :-)

PV_Premier

you could consider calling DL or the cruise company and asking them to upfare the ticket to an upgradeable fare class then use skymiles or GUC to get the seat. if the low level J award is available, the upgrade might also be.

MSPeconomist

Can you upfare a bulk ticket or does it lose all value if not flown exactly as ticketed?

flyerCO

Basically can only do what the company that bought the bull seats allows. DL has zero clue if you paid $400 or $4000 to determine what the update amount should be.